I think what Jeff is getting at, and I agree, is that you shouldn't necessary use the first solution you're given. Mark himself admitted that it's "quick and dirty"...

I've got a feeling the free space only tells you what's in the data file. Have you tried sp_spaceused?

John

The database size in the database properties window includes the log file size.

John

The only thing I can think of is to use the percent_complete column of sys.dm_exec_requests. You'll want to test to find out how accurate and reliable it is.

John

Have a look at this blog[/url]. It's got several different options for concatenating.

John

Jim

Truncating the log only removes none, some or all of the entries from it; it doesn't shrink it. You should consider backing up your log instead of truncating it,...

If you're using SQL Server 2000, it's more difficult. You have to use sysdatabases instead of sys.databases. Read the documentation about that and you'll see that the status...

No, you're not. FinMonth is an integer. Here's the proof from your original post:

[FinMonth] [int]

And here's what you're trying to do with it:

WHEN finmonth BETWEEN '2013-02-25' AND '2013-03-26'...

This is how you define the FinMonth column in #tempterminations, and therefore it's always going to be an integer between 1 and 12:

Datepart(mm, terminatedate) AS FinMonth

All you need to...

Please can we see your whole INSERT statement? I don't understand why, if you're inserting into FinMonth, you're testing for the value that's already there. Also, FinMonth is...

Something like this?

-- This uses a temp table, so if there's any chance

-- your session will close before you're finished,

-- use a permanent table instead.

-- You'll need to make it...

Do you only get this error after 6:30 pm? Are you a member of sysadmin on the server? If you are, there should be no reason you can't...

I've seen a lot of religious discussions about naming conventions. My advice would be to search this site and others and weigh up the pros and cons of each...

Hugo Kornelis (9/3/2013)

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Thanks, John.

I had a look at the plans. Apparently the optimization steps I described were recently introduced. Your plans are in fact identical (I'll get to the extra...

Hugo

I'm on SQL Server 2008 R2 SP2. I ran both queries as a single batch, so there's a single execution plan, making it easy to compare them at a...